Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools

Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools

The first edition (1986) is informally called the "red dragon book" to distinguish it from the second edition[5] and from Aho & Ullman's 1977 Principles of Compiler Design sometimes known as the "green dragon book".^[5] Topics covered in the first edition include:

• Compiler structure
• finite automata
  )
• Syntax analysis (including context-free grammars, LL parsers, bottom-up parsers, and LR parsers
  )
• Syntax-directed translation
• type conversions and polymorphism
  )
• symbol tables and register allocation
  )
• intermediate code generation
  )
• Code optimization

Following in the tradition of its two predecessors, the second edition (2006) features a dragon and a knight on its cover, and is informally known as the purple dragon. Monica S. Lam of Stanford University became a co-author with this edition.

The second edition includes several additional topics, including:

• Directed translation
• New data flow analyses
• Parallel machines
• Garbage collection
• New case studies

Updated second edition

In order to cover recent developments and issues, there is an updated second edition from Pearson Education India (4 July 2023), with contributions from Sorav Bansal. This revised and updated edition has new chapters on Programming Language Semantics and Undefined Behaviour Semantics.

See also

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

References